Antechinus adustus, (Thomas)

Dyck, Steve Van, 2014, The Black-tailed Antechinus, Antechinus arktos sp. nov.: a new species of carnivorous marsupial from montane regions of the Tweed Volcano caldera, eastern Australia, Zootaxa 3765 (2), pp. 101-133 : 112-113

(5) A. arktos versus A. adustus (Thomas)

Pelage: A. arktos has a brownish-grey head that changes markedly to an orange-brown rump, fuscous black hindfeet, a thick-based, finely-furred, black tail and an orange-yellow eye and cheek patch; A. adustus has more uniformly dark brown fur with rusty tips on the head and back.

External Measurements: A. arktos is larger than A. adustus in absolute measurement for males in wt, hb, tv and hf. Female A. arktos tend to be larger than A. adustus in these measurements as well – significance was not achieved in ANOVAs because only three A.arktos females were available for comparison (see Table 5).

Craniodental Characters: A. arktos is larger than A. adustus in absolute measurement for a range of characters: in males APV, BL, Dent, IOW, NW, OBW, ZW, HT, PL, TC, NWR, PML, UML, HT-B, BuL, I 1 -P 3, LML, I 1 -P 3 and UPL; in females APV, BL, Dent, IOW, OBW, HT, PL, PML, UML, HT-B, BuL, I 1 -P 3, LML, I 1 -P 3 and UPL. A. arktos is significantly larger than A. adustus for IBW in males and PPV in males and females ( Table 5).

Other Comments: A. arktos occur in south-east Qld and north-east NSW in areas of high elevation and rainfall on the Tweed Volcano caldera, whereas A. adustus is known only from the wet tropics in north-east Qld. Genetics: uncorrected pairwise range differences at the mitochondrial gene CytB between A. arktos and A. adustus are 11.8– 12.8%.